Mother and Daughter

Do you remember your first loose tooth?

Wiggly, staring, pressing your tongue to push it outward in hopes it would fall out. Eating apples in hopes it would show up attached somewhere on the core.

Waiting. Staring. Waiting some more..

It’s quite a monumental event. Losing teeth, growing up it is a right of passage – baby teeth move out while grown up teeth move in.

I remember being about 7 years old and I could hardly stand it anymore, I wanted that thing out of my mouth. I was ready. I had wiggled it long enough. I had pressed on it long enough.

Even my Papa tried to give it some help. Yeah, he tied a string around it and well… you know. Sadly, even with the force of a string and some Papa powers, it wouldn’t even budge. Just created some extra pain, a little blood, and frustration.

That thing – it wasn’t ready. The new tooth was still being birthed below it and while I was ready – it wasn’t ready to erupt. Yet.

My kids are of tooth losing age. My 7 year old recently lost one however the process of waiting was excrutiating for her. What seems like forever she had been wiggling it, pressing it….staring at it.

“Mommy when is it going to come out?”

“Not yet honey, its not ready yet, you’ll know.”

“Mommy feel it, is it ready yet?”

“No, it still feels like it has a bit more to go…not yet”

“Not yet?!”

“No honey, not yet.”

Patiently (and sometimes impatiently) she waited, she wiggled, she waited. Finally, it came out when she least expected it and oh, what a happy camper she was!

“Mommy it fell out!!!! It fell out!!! It happened!”

And now that the baby tooth is gone we can finally see the beginning bud of this new tooth. It has likely been budding underneath there for awhile but wasn’t quite ready to sprout, until now. It had been applying pressure for awhile, but new growth, especially the kind of growth meant to last a lifetime, takes some time.

I can’t help but see these little life scenes as vivid pictures explaining some of what we struggle with in our every day life and how we view God. I can’t tell you how many situations in my life past and present that I have been wiggling, waiting, feeling ready for my grown up teeth to come in. From the trivial to the desperate, that waiting period is hard.

Are you waiting? Are you tired of applying pressure? Do you feel like that new growth, that change is never going to happen? That thing you are waiting for, that thing that you wish would erupt.

You wiggle. You stare. You wait.

Just like the new growth below the surface of a tooth takes time to erupt ..those places of “new” and “change” take time as well. New growth…takes time…

Here is what I know about my God…

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

There is a time for everything.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to kill and a time to heal,

A time to tear down and a time to build,

A time to weep and a time to laugh,

A time to mourn and a time to dance,

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

A time to search and a time to give up,

A time to keep and a time to throw away,

A time to tear and a time to mend,

A time to be silent and a time to speak,

A time to love and a time to hate,

A time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:2-8)

If you are in a season of waiting for the new to erupt, know that He is erupting something beautiful below the surface that you have yet to see. He does all things in His time. New growth does not come prematurely but right on time.

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@kemp_gina, @wayfmradio”]New growth does not come prematurely but right on time.[/tweetthis]

“For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” (Habakkuk 2:3)

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